Lab news – catlabhttp://blogs.clemson.edu/catlab
Cognition, Aging, and Technology LabWed, 07 Dec 2016 16:28:09 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5.3PUBLISHED: Effects of individual differences in working memory on performance and trust with various degrees of automationhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catlab/~3/BUU4oKcBMx0/
Mon, 21 Nov 2016 16:39:46 +0000http://blogs.clemson.edu/catlab/?p=949Our latest article “Effects of individual differences in working memory on performance and trust with various degrees of automation” has been published on Taylor & Francis Online. It is available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1463922X.2016.1252806.

ABSTRACT
Previous studies showed performance benefits with correct automation, but performance costs when the automation was incorrect (i.e. provided an incorrect course of action), particularly as degrees of automation increased. Automation researchers have examined individual differences, but have not investigated the relationship between working memory and performance with various degrees of automation that is both correct and incorrect. In the current study, working memory ability interacted with automation reliability and degree of automation. Higher degrees of correct automation helped performance while higher degrees of incorrect automation worsened performance, especially for those with lower working memory. Lower working memory was also associated with more trust in automation. Results illustrate the interaction between degree of automation and individual differences in working memory on performance with automation that is correct and automation that fails.

]]>http://blogs.clemson.edu/catlab/2016/11/21/published-effects-of-individual-differences-in-working-memory-on-performance-and-trust-with-various-degrees-of-automation/Richard Pak elected Fellow of American Psychological Associationhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catlab/~3/2yChKhgbfYU/
Sat, 01 Oct 2016 00:29:04 +0000http://blogs.clemson.edu/catlab/?p=941Richard Pak was elected fellow of the American Psychological Association, effective January 2017.

Fellow status is an honor bestowed upon APA members who have shown evidence of unusual and outstanding contributions or performance in the field of psychology. Fellow status requires that a person’s work has had a national impact on the field of psychology beyond a local, state or regional level. A high level of competence or steady and continuing contributions are not sufficient to warrant fellow status. National impact must be demonstrated.

]]>http://blogs.clemson.edu/catlab/2016/09/30/richard-pak-elected-fellow-of-american-psychological-association/catlab at 2016 HFES conferencehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catlab/~3/OOtjnvZI7YY/
Mon, 26 Sep 2016 18:26:25 +0000http://blogs.clemson.edu/catlab/?p=935]]>http://blogs.clemson.edu/catlab/2016/09/26/catlab-at-2016-hfes-conference/PUBLISHED: The effect of individual differences in working memory in older adults on performance with different degrees of automated technologyhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catlab/~3/FwUpqmUJKjs/
Wed, 13 Jul 2016 21:35:04 +0000http://blogs.clemson.edu/catlab/?p=907Our latest research is published and available here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00140139.2016.1189599

A leading hypothesis to explain older adults’ overdependence on automation is age-related declines in working memory. However, it has not been empirically examined. The purpose of the current experiment was to examine how working memory affected performance with different degrees of automation in older adults. In contrast to the well-supported idea that higher degrees of automation, when the automation is correct, benefits performance but higher degrees of automation, when the automation fails, increasingly harms performance, older adults benefited from higher degrees of automation when the automation was correct but were not differentially harmed by automation failures. Surprisingly, working memory did not interact with degree of automation but did interact with automation correctness or failure. When automation was correct, older adults with higher working memory ability had better performance than those with lower abilities. But when automation was incorrect, all older adults, regardless of working memory ability, performed poorly.

Practitioner Summary: The design of automation intended for older adults should focus on ways of making the correctness of the automation apparent to the older user and suggest ways of helping them recover when it is malfunctioning.

ABSTRACT

Background: Technology gains have improved tools for evaluating complex tasks by providing environmental supports (ES) that increase ease of use and improve performance outcomes through the use of information visualizations (info-vis). Complex info-vis emphasize the need to understand individual differences in abilities of target users, the key cognitive abilities needed to execute a decision task, and the graphical elements that can serve as the most effective ES. Older adults may be one such target user group that would benefit from increased ES to mitigate specific declines in cognitive abilities. For example, choosing a prescription drug plan is a necessary and complex task that can impact quality of life if the wrong choice is made. The decision to enroll in one plan over another can involve comparing over 15 plans across many categories. Within this context, the large amount of complex information and reduced working memory capacity puts older adults’ decision making at a disadvantage. An intentionally designed ES, such as an info-vis that reduces working memory demand, may assist older adults in making the most effective decision among many options.

Objective: The objective of this study is to examine whether the use of an info-vis can lower working memory demands and positively affect complex decision-making performance of older adults in the context of choosing a Medicare prescription drug plan.

Methods: Participants performed a computerized decision-making task in the context of finding the best health care plan. Data included quantitative decision-making performance indicators and surveys examining previous history with purchasing insurance. Participants used a colored info-vis ES or a table (no ES) to perform the decision task. Task difficulty was manipulated by increasing the number of selection criteria used to make an accurate decision. A repeated measures analysis was performed to examine differences between the two table designs.

Results: Twenty-three older adults between the ages of 66 and 80 completed the study. There was a main effect for accuracy such that older adults made more accurate decisions in the color info-vis condition than the table condition. In the low difficulty condition, participants were more successful at choosing the correct answer when the question was about the gap coverage attribute in the info-vis condition. Participants also made significantly faster decisions in the info-vis condition than in the table condition.

Conclusions: Reducing the working memory demand of the task through the use of an ES can improve decision accuracy, especially when selection criteria is only focused on a single attribute of the insurance plan.

]]>http://blogs.clemson.edu/catlab/2016/06/01/published-effects-of-information-visualization-on-older-adults-decision-making-performance-in-a-medicare-plan-selection-task/PUBLISHED: Does the domain of technology impact user trust? Investigating trust in automation across different consumer-oriented domains in young adults, military, and older adultshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/catlab/~3/Djngr0gLkSw/
Fri, 22 Apr 2016 17:49:47 +0000http://blogs.clemson.edu/catlab/?p=889Our new paper can be downloaded at: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/HJrFr5ChDd6xvFjv5pjA/full

Trust has been shown to be a determinant of automation usage and reliance. Thus, understanding the factors that affect trust in automation has been a focus of much research. Despite the increased appearance of automation in consumer-oriented domains, the majority of research examining human-automation trust has occurred in highly specialised domains (e.g. flight management, military) and with specific user groups. We investigated trust in technology across three different groups (young adults, military, and older adults), four domains (consumer electronics, banking, transportation, and health), two stages of automation (information and decision automation), and two levels of automation reliability (low and high). Our findings suggest that trust varies on an interaction of domain of technology, reliability, stage, and user group.

Abstract: The purpose of the current study was to examine the extent to which the appearance, task, and reliability of a robot is susceptible to stereotypic thinking. Stereotypes can influence the types of causal attributions that people make about the performance of others. Just as causal attributions may affect an individual’s perception of other people, it may similarly affect perceptions of technology. Stereotypes can also influence perceived capabilities of others. That is, in situations where stereotypes are activated, an individual’s perceived capabilities are typically diminished. The tendency to adjust perceptions of capabilities of others may translate into levels of trust placed in the individual’s abilities. A cross-sectional factorial survey using video vignettes was used to assess young adults’ and older adults’ attitudes toward a robot’s behavior and appearance. Trust and capability ratings of the robot were affected by participant age, reliability, and domain. Patterns of causal reasoning within the human-robot interaction (HRI) context differed from causal reasoning patterns found in human-human interaction.

Abstract: Complacency refers to a type of automation use expressed as insufficient monitoring and verification of automated functions. Previous studies have attempted to identify the age-related factors that influence complacency during interaction with automation. However, little is known about the role of age-related differences in working memory capacity and its connection to complacent behaviors. The current study examined whether working memory demand of an automated task and age-related differences in cognitive ability influence complacency. Working memory demand was manipulated in the task with two degrees of automation (i.e., information and decision). A younger and older age group was included to observe the effects of differences in working memory capacity on performance in a targeting task using an automated aid. The results of the study show that younger and older adults did not significantly differ in complacent behavior for information or decision automation. Also, individual differences in working memory capacity did not predict complacency in the automated task. However, these findings do not disprove the role of working memory in automation-induced complacency. Both age groups were more complacent with automation that had less working memory demand. Our findings suggest systems that utilize both higher and lower degrees of automation could limit over-dependence. These results provide implications for the design of automated interfaces.